She set the kit on a table then gestured for him to hold out his hand. After a moment, he surrendered.Notbecause he wanted her to touch him, he assured himself as her deft fingers untied the makeshift bandage. She cradled his hand in both of hers and examined the wounds. The flesh around the bite was purpling and swelling.
“It looks painful. I’m so sorry.”
“You aren’t the one who bit me.”
She flashed him a pleading glance. “I’m sure Avery is very sorry.”
Lucien arched one brow in disbelief. She flushed prettily.
“At least, he knows it was very wrong of him…,” she amended. “Perhaps he will feel more at ease with you once he grows used to visiting us here at Everdene.”
That will never happen,he thought,because I won’t be here.But for the first time, the resolution gave him a twinge. How often had he behaved thus? Avoided people who threatened his solitude, escaped…That had been his plan with Grace as well, and yet, he was haunted by the sadness his withdrawal had caused her. Pain that would grow greater still, if he let it.
He watched her as she crossed to the washstand and dampened a length of toweling, the soft curve of her lips, the glow of tenderness in her eyes. Would he be able to block her out as he had so many others? Even on the midnight roads, she had been with him, in the stars overhead, in his thoughts…No, pulling away from her wouldn’t change this uncomfortable sensation inside him. And yet, could he ever change this instinctive reaction? Do something different this time?Maybe…a voice whispered inside him.
Maybe not.
She returned to him, and his breath caught in his chest. “This was all an unfortunate mistake,” she said as she dabbed away the dried blood. “We have all made them.”
“Some worse than others,” he observed wryly.
“Surely you will give Avery a chance to make things right,” she said. She spread the puncture wounds open just a little and poured whiskey into the cuts.
He welcomed the sting. “I was not speaking of Avery’s transgressions. I was merely considering past errors of my own.”
She regarded him with that sharp discernment he found unnerving. “You know, in medieval times they used to whip people through the marketplace so the whole village could see them do penance for their sins. You are a fine looking man, so you would draw quite a crowd.”
He frowned. “I don’t consider it a jesting matter.”
“Of course you don’t since you are using it as an excuse.”
He felt as if he’d grasped white-hot iron. “What?”
“If your mistakes are unforgiveable, you can use them like weapons to keep people away. You do not have to take risks.”
“You were just complaining that I was riding at night.”
“I am not speaking of physical risks. Those are easy enough. Risks of the heart are another matter.”
“Easy to say when one’s conscience is as clean as yours. You know nothing about what I have done.”
“Then tell me.”
God, she was so beautiful, so earnest, so tempting. As if she were some mystical being who might wash his sins away. But there was no such healing magic. Not for a man like him. And she’d best understand that now.
“I am what destroyed my family,” he said. “I spent years after my mother and sisters disappeared believing my father’s lies. My father insisted that Mother was not in her right mind. He enlisted me to be his spy. Alert him if anything strange happened. I performed my duty well. I discovered my mother, Jane and Cassandra, attempting to run away in the middle of the night. They begged me not to tell, but I was my father’s creature.” His lip curled in disgust. “I raised the alarm, and they were captured.”
He watched Grace, searched for the change in her face, to see her disgust, her horror at what he’d done.
She paused, as if trying to take it in, and he waited for her to recoil from him, turn away. But she only peered up at him with those eyes that seemed to penetrate to his deepest core, her face sorrowful, filled with understanding. “You trusted your father. Most children do,” she said so gently his hands knotted into fists.
“Father said Mother deserted us.” His voice grew rough. “Years later, when I began to ask questions, he said she had died somewhere on the continent.”
“That is on his conscience. Not yours.”
“Three years ago, Penelope discovered that our mother was alive. That she had spent years in an asylum. A kind doctor got her released. But father warned that, if she contacted us, he would cut Cassandra, Jane and Simon off without a farthing.”
Only now did Grace’s eyes widen. “No wonder you were all so shocked when he turned up at the welcome dinner.”
